Welcome back to Waifu Wednesday, Niche Gamer’s column where we talk about characters, their appeal, and a little on their history.

It’s Waifu Wednesday! This week’s waifu is Alma from Monster Hunter Wilds!

Alma is the player’s “handler” companion. A precedent set in Monster Hunter World, the handler effectively takes the role of the guild receptionists in earlier titles but with a more personal affinity with the player character.

In this case, Alma is a researcher and curious scholar. She lacks the exuberance of the handler from World whose likability was a… contentious topic on social media. Alma meanwhile, is a lot more calm and contrasts with the tomboyishness of your resident blacksmith Gemma.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t fond of Alma at the start, but her character design started to grow on me after a couple hours. Also the cute fanart and alternate outfits she gets helped too. Part of it was I also had a negative bias after the handler from World. But I realized that Alma has more in common with the Serious Handler, a beloved NPC who has a larger role in the Iceborne expansion.

Overall, Alma is really cute if you just give her a chance. I know she’s not as overtly sexy as Gemma is, but she’s pretty in her own way, and a character that provides a valuable presence to Monster Hunter Wilds (also someone said she kind of looks like Kson and I can’t unsee it).